Most television viewers now receive their television signals through a content aggregator such as a cable or satellite television provider. In the typical instance, encoded television signals are sent via a cable or wireless data link to the viewer's home, where the signals are ultimately decoded in a set-top box or other consumer device. The decoded signals can then be viewed on a television or other appropriate display as desired by the viewer.
Although consumers have reacted very favorably to aggregated television content, issues often remain in providing two-way communications between consumer devices and the content aggregator. Conventional set-top boxes, for example, are often unable to transmit via the same link that is used to receive content, particularly if the receiving link is satellite based. Although efforts have been made to provide some sort of back channel communication via dial-up telephone links or the like, many of consumer devices still do not maintain such capabilities. Moreover, even for devices that do include some limited back-channel communications, these communications are often slow, intermittent and/or otherwise undesirable for certain purposes.
In particular, it has been inconvenient to implement an “on demand”-type of content service via many aggregated television systems. Although satellite and other aggregated services are capable of providing significant amounts of bandwidth on the downlink to the consumer device, this bandwidth is nevertheless limited at some point. The limits in downlink bandwidth, coupled with the frequent inconvenience of receiving back channel communications from the consumer, can make subscription-based or on-demand content services difficult to implement in practice.
It is therefore desirable to create systems and processes for providing content via a high-bandwidth connection based upon consumer preferences. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.